


Ding Dong, Merrily On High

by brawltogethernow



Series: 50 things to do after your first interdimensional jaunt [2]
Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Marvel, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Banter, Christmas, Depression Recovery, Gen, Hot Mess Trying Their Best, Miles' Extradimensional Mixtape, Post-Canon, and just a LITTLE frank emotion, being a superhero ruins your schedule, bg petermj + peter&miles, everybody's in love with peter and cursing their own taste which is honestly how i feel as a fan, i did not write this instead of sleeping so much as stay up all night to get it presentable by x-mas, my read on this relationship is 'johnny is pining after peter but resigned about it', spideytorch in the sense that, they're mean but they love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawltogethernow/pseuds/brawltogethernow
Summary: "What the hell were you doing here if you thought I was dead?" he asked, the words barely out of his mouth before he'd peeled up his mask and shoved more than half of the donut into it.
Relationships: Peter B. Parker & Johnny Storm, Peter Parker & Johnny Storm, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Series: 50 things to do after your first interdimensional jaunt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603408
Comments: 12
Kudos: 182





	Ding Dong, Merrily On High

**Author's Note:**

> Today's movie + comicverse fusion flavor is how Peter and Johnny Storm meet on the Statue of Liberty every Christmas morning.

"I'm not late!" Peter denied before both of his feet were even touching Lady Liberty's crown.

"I thought you were _dead!_ " Johnny had brought donuts, and he lobbed one at his head. Peter caught it easily, snake quick.

"What the hell were you doing here if you thought I was dead?" he asked, the words barely out of his mouth before he'd peeled up his mask and shoved more than half of the donut into it.

"I meant three weeks ago!" He threw another donut. Peter caught this one too. "You dropped off the face of the goddamn Earth! You couldn't have sent a text when you got back?" He spread his hands out in front of him like he was outlining a headline: "'I'm not dead, don't send out the dogs. Plane landing emoji, house emoji.'"

"Eh, I figured I'd see you on Christmas anyway," shrugged Peter, polishing off the first donut and tearing a bite out of the second. The attack by pastry had arrested his momentum, so he remained crouched on the rim of the crown, balancing on the balls of his sticky feet, a little higher than where the Human Torch stood on the ridges of the statue's hair with his arms crossed. "Sorry. Had stuff to do. Deadman's switches to reset, excuses to make, people to apologize to."

" _I'm_ a people."

"Well if you always say it like that," another bite of the donut, "I'm not surprised you're met with expressions of doubt."

"You were just _gone_ , web-brain," said Johnny hotly. Not literally, yet, though the faint flurries swirling through the freezer-temperature air evaporated whenever they got within a couple inches of his skin. In a proper snow storm he'd be effectively steaming mad. "Reed scanned _deep space_ and couldn't find you. And the worst thing..."

He dipped his head, glowering at the oxidized metal under his feet.

"We didn't even notice at first," he finished, through his teeth. "Because you already weren't talking to us."

An awkward silence.

"Well, it can't have taken you that long," offered Peter at last, a gesture both parties could see was insufficient. "I was only gone a couple days."

"You've been blipping off the map off and on ever since then, _fucker._ Are you in danger?"

"No," said Peter breezily, using one hand to snag something out of the tiny hidden pockets at his belt that would have been impossible to get anything out of in under a minute without the aid of unnaturally adhesive fingertips. (The other was up by his mouth so he could suck the sugar off of his fingers.) "Here." He lobbed something small at Johnny, who caught it, but with embarrassingly less grace than Peter had snatched Johnny's own projectile. It bounced off his hand, and he had to go low to get it before it could eat copper. "I'd say ho ho ho, but homaging a fat man in a red suit would honestly be a little too real for me at this time in my life."

"You look fine, idiot," said Johnny, hoping it wasn't blazingly obvious he'd spent enough time staring at Peter's abs to have noticed what Peter was talking about and also that he'd lost some of the weight since the last batch of good photos taken of him. Overall, in a way that was more body language than anything, he just looked better. "Though honestly, you getting old and hideous would just be karma."

"You are the _worst_ friend."

"You don't have enough left to be picky."

"..."

"No comeback for that one, huh?"

"...Are you ever going to look at that, or are you just going to roast me."

"Is it really Christmas without -- this is not a crack about your weight -- a ham? ...What, what's with that weird look."

"You just reminded me of somebody else on my gift list. It's nothing."

"You're getting somebody a ham?"

"No."

"Then...?"

"Trust me, we do _not_ have the time to get into it right now." He gestured at the thing in Johnny's hand. "Super weird, not the time. Moving on."

It was a red and black USB stick, stamped with a little red spider. Johnny held it up in the watery December light and squinted at it. "What the hell is this?"

"It's called a flash drive, Torchie. You stick it into one of these new-fangled gizmos called a computer, see, and--"

"You know what I meant."

"It's music. From another dimension. I had a kid I met make it up for me. I looked it all up and most of the artists exist here but none of the tracks do. Thought you'd get a kick out of that. And like you said, I was kind of out of town during gift-buying season."

He'd been back for most of a distracted wreck's gift buying season and lying around his apartment in the grips of depression during a together, responsible person's gift-buying season. Like a slug. But whatever, no one who was still talking to him after all these years would be fazed if their presents were a little late. Everybody left standing had come to grips a time or two (or twenty) with him not even scraping the bare minimum of meeting non-emergency commitments.

Johnny's nose wrinkled. "You met a kid in another dimension? Wait, you were in _another dimension?_ "

"You're hitting dog octaves, stoppit. Come on, this is like a Tuesday for you. Other dimensions are your before breakfast constitutional. I should know--you take pains to remind me constantly."

"Yeah, well, obviously _I'm_ very exciting and well-traveled, but _you_ get a rash if you leave the city! Are you alright? Did you get checked for space measles?"

"Not that kind of other dimension. Technically I _didn't_ leave the city."

"Oh, well _that's_ alright then! That's fine!" He waved his hands angry-sarcastically, whatever effect would normally have been achieved depleted by the half-dozen box in one hand and goober in the other.

"If you're gonna punch me, remember that there are webcams up here these days. Impressionable children watch those. Studious types."

"How do you know they're studious types?"

"Who _else_ would be watching a livestream of the Statue of Liberty's head?"

Johnny tossed his hair pointedly. "Celeb chasers panting to catch a glimpse of _us._ "

Peter rolled his eyes with exaggerated exasperation. "I haven't met you here in--"

He stilled. The shroud of flippancy he'd had gathered around him dissipated for the first time since he'd touched down.

"Wow."

"...Pete?"

"I haven't met you here in _two years._ I didn't show last year, and-- Johnny. I'm sorry. I didn't realize it had been that long."

"Yeah, well..." Johnny rarely wished Peter would take things more seriously anymore, because once he had it he never knew what to do with it. "Hey, I've always known you were kind of a shitty friend; this isn't news."

The tension snapped like a rubber band stretched too far. Peter huffed a laugh, thank god. "I do not deserve that."

"Red. Chiffon. Incident."

"I thought we were forbidden ever to talk about that."

"I meant that for you. Not me. I have a right to grouse and I will _exercise_ it."

"Yeah, well, you're not so hot either, except when your head's on fire. What about the time on that boat when--"

"I can't believe you'd slander me like this. In our traditional meeting spot. A place of peace, on a day of joy and goodwill."

"Yeah, I _thought_ you wouldn't want to talk about that. And some day. Where's _my_ holiday haul, huh?"

"I got you donuts, didn't I?"

"Wow. And after all the trouble I went to. Typical."

"You made me a mixtape, like we're in middle school. Here." He reached down to pick up the messenger bag he'd carried up here, tugged out a lump in green wrapping paper, and tossed it, but not all the way to Peter this time, more wary than with the donuts of it going over the side. Peter fell from the crown to meet it at the peak of its arc, touching down on the lower level on silent feet but with the wrapping crinkling where he was holding it. "Don't open it until you get home; your swinging will mess it up."

Peter weighed it on his hand; it flopped. "This feels like a sweater."

"Shut up."

"Just observing."

"Alright, fine, it's a sweater. Actually, it isn't even a gift. It's an intervention about the way you dress."

Peter took advantage of their closer proximity to reach out and snag another donut. "You get sweeter every year, Torch. How will my heart ever take it?"

"Those are to _share,_ you know."

"And I am taking my share."

A moment passed. "...So, say," Johnny hedged. "You probably _should_ get checked for space measles. If you want to, I don't know. Come over to the Baxter Building to get swept over. And have lunch with the family. Some version of Nathaniel is going to be there. I didn't catch which one, but you know that's going to be a riot."

Peter was already shaking his head, mouth quirking fondly. "Can't. I'm meeting MJ today."

"You're _talking_ to Mary Jane?"

"We're...in touch."

Johnny made a motion as if to throw Peter's gift to him back at Peter's head, stopped, flailed instead. "Wear the intervention so she won't be as embarrassed to be seen next to you. And if she comes to her senses and slams the door on you and leaves you out in the cold like a beautiful and self-respecting celebrity like her should do, the offer from _this_ celebrity, who clearly has no self-respect at all, stands."

"'Ppreciate it, Torchie, but I won't need it." Under his breath, he added, "I hope."

"Hey, I'm trying to extend an olive branch here!"

"I always accuse people of being diseased when I do that. It's a classic. First chapter in every book about how to influence people."

"What do I need to influence _you_ for, B-list?"

"You know, I've missed this. I mean, this is how everybody talks to me, but you don't actually _mean_ it."

Johnny received this sign of a person fraying at the seams packaged as a joke with silence packed with deep, heavy judgment. "If you'd stop _ghosting_ everyone who was nice to you--"

"Alright, al _right_ , I've heard it all before, I get it, alright."

"Come by after you talk to MJ," Johnny insisted stubbornly. "No, shut up, I'm still talking. I don't care if she slams the door in your face or ties you to her bedpost for 72 hours. If it's the second one you hydrate and then you come over."

"This is getting a little more details-y than I particularly want to get with you."

"Parker."

" _Oh-kay._ I'll come by. I promise."

There was an unspoken caveat of, _unless a disaster prevents me._ But that was okay: It was the same for Johnny.

"Look, I gotta go, my Über driver is here." As he spoke Peter was already yanking his mask down with his left hand and raising his right to flick his wrist and sling a line up to an unsuspecting news chopper just veering into range. Johnny was silent, distracted by watching the marvel that was the web actually connecting, muscle memory built of years of experience, a cascade of barely-conscious calculations, and the technical masterwork of the webshooter itself coming together and outgunning the chaotic air currents around the 'copter. Peter hadn't even looked at it except at the last second to check his aim.

Johnny didn't stick around long once the only company had swung away. And if he melted some of the webcams on his way out, well, that was between him and their privacy.


End file.
